Education funding vs. an income tax cut. This should prove a populistic throwdown that can get the entire commonwealth riled up and into the voting booths.

The Neshoba County Fair politicking last week made clear one looming battle for the 2015 legislative session and election year. Education funding vs. an income tax cut.

This should prove a populistic throwdown that can get the commonwealth riled up.

Now, someone cynical might think that the initiative to have voters add full funding of education to the state Constitution next year is a Democratic get-out-the-vote move and a way to put pressure on the Republican legislative leadership. Surely not, but the circulating petition drive for a ballot initiative would have the added benefit of doing so — and deciding some undecideds.

Likewise, one might suspect a move confirmed last week by Gov. Phil Bryant and Republican legislative leaders to cut income taxes would be the counter, for Republicans to fool their enemies and amaze their friends in an election year. And it would provide some cover from education funding fallout.

Both moves face peaks and pitfalls.

The ballot initiative to constitutionally force full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program formula would, for starters, turn a major legislative power over to the courts. This poses some serious separation of power and fiscal issues that go well beyond public schools and next year’s elections.

Too, the move is already being hamstrung by a group of Democratic lawyers led by former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. In a move that shows an astounding lack of unified Democratic strate-gery, this group is trying to drum up a lawsuit with school districts suing the state for up to $1.5 billion MAEP has been shorted since 2010. Besides potential budget catastrophe, the potential for millions in fees paid to these altruistic lawyers could taint the initiative.

As for an income tax cut — or as Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves phrased it at the fair last week, “a pay raise for taxpayers” — that poses some potential problems, too.

For starters, Mississippi’s income tax rate, a scale from 3 percent to 5 percent, is already low, but individual income taxes make up a large chunk of state revenue. The state ranks 11th lowest, and below the national average, for state-local tax rates. But individual income taxes account for 28 percent of state revenue, second to sales taxes at 37 percent and ahead of corporate income taxes at 13 percent.

State finances look good. The rainy-day fund is full, at more than $400 million, and early estimates are lawmakers could have an extra $250 million or so in revenue to spend. But the state economy is only now climbing out of recession, and the national economy still appears shaky. Plus the state has major infrastructure and other needs that haven’t been addressed in years. In the 1990s, many other states slashed income taxes during an economic upswing, only to face drastic repercussions a few years later when things tanked.

A tax cut makes voters really happy. Drastic cuts in services, teacher layoffs or tax increases a couple of years later would make them really mad.

The two moves should make the legislative session, election season and, of course, the Neshoba County Fair, most interesting next year.